Page 90 of All Packed Up

“What we’ve been waiting too long for,” Derek gritted out.

She couldn’t turn her head to see his face, but she knew his teeth were gritted as sweat dripped off his nose. His knot pressed at her core, and she warred with opposite emotions.

Her body was tensing up, an orgasm approaching, and she couldn’t think.

But she knew this wasn’t right.

Wendy tried to twist her head against Derek’s tight hold. “Wait, Derek—”

“Oh, don’t try to go back on your word now. We asked you. You said yes,” he sneered.

Panic seized her, and she wrapped her hands around his wrist, trying to untangle his fingers from her hair.

Her body was not quite on board with her, not with the heat making her needy and weak and—she wanted to cry because even as she panicked, Derek’s hips stuttered, and she clenched around him in the beginnings of an orgasm.

“There we go,” he said, voice softer than she’d ever heard it. He knocked her hands away and laid his palm to the side of her temple, pressing her head into the mattress until her neck ached.

“No—”

“It’s time, lost girl,” he said, throwing her words back in her face.

Wendy wished she could say she screamed as his face lowered to her neck and his teeth bit through her skin.

Instead her body had come apart beneath him, shaking from traitorous pleasure as her mind was invaded, carved into shape to make room for an alpha she never wanted.

“Wendy!” Nic yelled. She blinked, the nightmare falling away as Nic’s face came into focus. He peered at her, eyes worried and heavy. He waited until she met his gaze to touch her, placing his hands on her shoulders with a featherlight touch. “Are you okay?”

Wendy felt her face crumple as she shook her head. Nic grabbed her, pulling her close and pressing his palm to the back of her head, but not quite before she saw his expression. He was gutted.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. Burying her face in his shoulder, she sucked in his beta scent like it would return her sanity as she cried.

“I never had a chance,” she hiccupped. “What was I supposed to do?”

Wendy felt so ruined, so regretful and sad. For the years she’d wasted with them. From the beginning she’d never had a chance, just a naïve small-town girl, finding herself at the center of attention from the most popular alphas on campus.

Nic shook his head against her, just gripping her tighter, and at this point, probably holding her together.

Her bond mark throbbed as if mocking her. And Derek was too far away to offer anything other than satisfaction through the bond, reacting to her sorrow.

“If they find me, the other three will force bond me, and I’ll never get away from them,” she whispered, voice thick with tears.

I’d rather die.

Now that she could see past their stories and their smiles and their manipulative narrative, she could never be with them. And part of them had to know that. If they took her back, she had a feeling there weren’t going to be any more fake smiles. Since she already knew what was underneath, what was the point in them hiding?

She couldn’t go back with those alphas. No matter what.

“They called me lost girl.” Wendy wished she could laugh at the utter perfection, because she’d never been more lost than when she was with those alphas.

“You’re not lost anymore. You’re right here,” Nic promised.

Wendy had said no more tears, but she cried anyway. She cried for the years she’d lost and the time she wasted and the parts of herself that had been chipped away in order to fit the puzzle that completed those alphas.

Wendy clutched at Nic tighter, and after a long moment, he bent and scooped her up. His steps were steady and quick as he brought her out of the woods, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on tight.

She wondered what the goddamn rush was until they broke the tree line and she glanced up. A giant gray cloud was covering the sky, and from the tension in the air, the way the wind blew right through her layers, it was about to rain.

“Nic? What’s wrong?”